Forty fifth anniversary: reflections about the man on the moon

Forty-five years ago tomorrow on July 20, 1969, Apollo 11’s lunar module, Eagle, touched down on the moon.

Hours later, Neil Armstrong, would step out of the spacecraft and step onto the lunar surface, describing the event as “one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”

For the United States, it was a defining moment in history as people sat glued to their black-and-white televisions.

Armstrong’s fellow moonwalker Buzz Aldrin is asking people to remember where they were when he and Armstrong became the first humans to step onto another heavenly body, and to share their memories online.

And The Record Herald did the same on Facebook. Here are some reflections:

“I was in Baltimore, at my grandmother’s house with two of my cousins. My girl cousin and I were 12-year-olds interested in teenybopper things. My boy cousin, probably 14 at the time, was glued to the television and kept telling us we needed to come watch. Today he works for the Space Science Telescope Institute, was part of the Hubble project and now part of the Webb project.”

— Deb Ragno

“I was in labor in Washington, D.C. My first child was born on that day!!”

— Mary Ann Stitely

“I was living in Lawton, Oklahoma.”

— Martha Jane Hause

Aldrin’s query brought responses like:

“What a day that was.”

— Actor Tom Hanks, star of the movie “Apollo 13.”

— “I knew immediately it was the most exciting thing that I’d ever seen. I was only 5 at the time. And it still is just about the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen.”